News tratta da Deadline.comThe Get Down was expected to be an expensive proposition from the get-go and Netflix
knew it. The series from Academy Award-winning husband-wife team of Baz Luhrmann and Catherine Martin, Pulitzer-winning
playwright Stephen Adly Guirgis, hip-hop historian Nelson George and
iconic rappers MC Nas and Grandmaster Flash was expected to cost around
$11 million per episode for 12 episodes, which all-in would have totaled
about $120M.
However, Deadline has learned that given the way the deal is
constructed, Netflix is paying more like $16M per episode — inclusive in
the total is worldwide rights to the IP, and factored into that are the
premiums that Netflix paid to acquire those rights exclusively.

Other costs include start-up, visual effects, music rights and
production design. Of the $16 million, around $11 million was the final
production expenses per episode, $3 million-$4 million over the initial
budget following a string of filming shutdowns, staffing changes and
script rewrites. When a TV drama is produced for $6M or higher an
episode, it is considered expensive.
So adding in all the costs on The Get Down, including the
worldwide rights and premiums, that brings the total for the 12-episode
season closer to the $190M-plus range. They are not completely wrapped
yet either.The Get Down is not a runaway hit the way Netflix’s pop culture phenom Stranger Things has been. Stranger Thingsranks No. 3 on Symphony Advanced Media’s chart for viewings among 18- to 49-year-olds; The Get Down is No. 14.

However, Netflix’s strategy for many of its original series is to
target specific, often under-served segments of the audience as a way of
expanding its subscriber base. The Get Downis said to be the
No. 1 show among African Americans and Hispanics and is building out
among the young demographic as well — it has caught on with high
schoolers. The Get Downis drawing in demos that other Netflix shows normally don’t, said one insider.
Internally, Netflix viewer satisfaction surveys for U.S. viewers that Deadline obtained reveal that TheGet Downscored
well among hip-hop fans and just slightly better with men than women.
Overall, it got a 66% excellent or good rating, with concerns about the
slow pacing at the onset but viewers saying that it picked up as the
show progressed. The other satisfaction surveys on the show are said to
be way above the norm in other countries, specifically France, Germany
and Latin America.
In Netflix’s quarterly earnings call Monday, the company’s chief
content officer Ted Sarandos said that their new season of content
(which includes The Get Down) was traveling globally proportionally as they had hoped.
In responding to a question during the call about The Get Down and its expense versus viewership, Sarandos said, “Yes, it’s an
expensive piece of television. Mostly because it’s very large scale,
cinematic. The reason why Baz Luhrmann’s films work around the world is
that kind of attractiveness. We’re still seeing how it’s going to unfold
for the first season. All the shows land at a different level of noise
in the press and probably depending on what circles you run in, whether
or not your friends are talking about it. We’re very excited about how
the show has been performing, particularly in a quarter where we had
four shows that turned out to be kind of big event programs for us”. The first six episodes of The Get Down‘s first season were released in August, with the remaining six set to debut in 2017. Netflix had no comment for this report.